Rumors have been knocking around for a while now suggesting that Google intends to get into the retail business and set itself up some storefronts. One running theme attached to these claims was that Google really needed some in-person experience to sell Glass, considering both how unfamiliar products like it are to shoppers and the substantial sum of money Google's been asking buyers to drop on the wearable. It still remains to be seen if any of that will pan out, but today we learn about a different way Google is tackling those issues with Glass, starting a new program to provide in-home ...

Last week, we heard a rumor that Google was about to take Google Glass down from the lofty realms of exclusivity and make the wearable broadly available for one day and one day only, putting it up for sale to anyone in the US still interested in being a tester before the full-on retail launch. Shortly after we shared that rumor with you, Google stepped up to confirm the news, and now we're just hours away from these Glass sales going live. Here's what's happening: starting tomorrow morning at 9am Eastern (6am Pacific), Google is opening up the Glass Explorer Program. In order to ...

Watch today's Pocketnow Daily as we talk about the Samsung Galaxy S5 in stores, aside from the Samsung Gear line-up. HTC is next as the company takes a stab at the Galaxy S5 by comparing it to the HTC One M8, at least secretly. Microsoft is next as we get more rumors of a Surface Mini to be launched soon. LG follows as we get more reports of a 2K display coming on the LG G3. We end today's show talking about the launch of Google Glass to the public, at least temporarily. All this and more after the break. Stories: - Galaxy S5 availability draws big crowds (in some places) - HTC leak makes ...

Google Glass has been available to participants in Google's Glass Explorer program for over a year by now. Participants willing to be Google's real world Guinea pigs and fork over $1500 for the headset have been able to get an early start on enjoying this next big wave of wearable technology, but the path to getting your hands on Glass hasn't been entirely straightforward. With broad commercial sales not yet open, buying Glass first meant being chosen specifically by Google, though later we saw availability open up a little. While we're still waiting for that day when Glass might be ...

Google's brief experiment with being involved in smartphone hardware manufacturing (or at least, doing so at arm's length) is about to wrap up, but as we know, the company's still got plenty of hardware interests elsewhere. Those take the form of things like Chromecast or Google Glass, with the latter generating a whole lot of buzz as we near a presumed commercial launch. Alongside Glass, we've been hearing rumors now and then of Google's interest in smartwatches, and according to a new report, these wearable gadgets are precisely the direction Google is plotting for itself. According to a ...

When you can kick off a tech podcast with a string of expletives taken right from your publication's teamwide chat records, you know it's been a crazy week in the news. The Lenovo Motorola deal, announced late yesterday afternoon, threw our whole week -and perhaps our whole world- into disarray, and we're grateful for the chance to sit down and talk it through on today's show. But the news doesn't stop there. Galaxy S 5 speculation is still coming fast and furious, with details like Samsung's rumored fingerprint scanner beginning to take shape; we're starting to catch wind of Nokia's plans ...

When talking with Pebble CEO Eric Migicovsky at CES, one thing he said stuck with me: Pebble's vision is not to replace smartphones, but to remain a peripheral. It's a controller or remote for your smartphone – nothing more, nothing less. The company prides itself in how simple and "out of the way" its wrist-mounted notification device is. Frankly, that's one of my favorite features of Pebble. I set it up and it just works, reliably … for days and days on a single charge. When I get a text message, Hangouts message, email, or social notification, Pebble buzzes and previews the ...

As Google Glass continues to mature on its way to a broader commercial launch, we've seen Google tweak the headset's design and offer more and more options. Already, that's led to the introduction of accessories like an earbud and a basic snap-on sunglass shade. Overnight, Google took that one shade option and really ran with it, introducing not just two new shades, but four frames, as well. In addition to the original “Active” shades, Google has new Edge and Classic alternatives – and unlike Active, these two have visible rims, if that's the look you prefer. The four frames (Thin, ...

The idea of Google Glass copycats isn't anything new. With a product as unusual and attention-grabbing as this (and if last night's The Simpsons parody wasn't evidence enough of the impact of Google Glass, we don't know what is), it's an inevitability that other companies will be interested in getting in on some of the action for themselves. Last fall, we heard some rumors that Samsung could be working on its own pair of augmented reality glasses, possibly to launch sometime this spring. Today we return to the idea, but looking a little further out, as we heard that Samsung may be ...

With wearable tech making its influx upon mainstream society, you had better believe that we're all going to have to get used to this brave new future. What that actually means, we still have to learn – will we find ourselves being more careful about what we say around people when their watches could be recording us, or they could be snapping pictures of us with their glasses? Google Glass is at the forefront of many of these questions, and an important one got answered today in a California court. Well... sort of. Cecilia Abadie was ticketed last year for driving while wearing her Glass ...

Sometime soon, Google Glass is going to stop being this just-out-of-arm's-reach product reserved for early adopters and hardcore tech enthusiasts, see a significant price drop (at least we sure hope), and start with its commercial availability. The novel user experience is bound to lead to periods of adjustment for a lot of those new owners, but even before any of that has a chance to take place, Google wants to catalyze another adjustment: that of how we speak about Glass. Well, Google can't very well tell any of us users what to do, but it just posted some branding guidelines for devs ...

For as much growth as smartwatches and fitness trackers saw in 2013, we've only been just getting the ball rolling; 2014 could well see wearables explode onto the market in record numbers, with Google Glass leading the charge. As we wait to see how final retail availability of Glass will begin, we're getting word of some new opportunities for early adopters to get their hands on the hardware, and hearing some new speculation about a launch price. Back in November we told you about some new ways interested users could become Glass Explorers, as we saw Google implement a sign-up page. ...

Not everyone sees the world in the same way. Of course that's plainly obvious if you've ever spent time in the dungeons comment sections of the internet, but it's easy to forget that it's also true in a literal sense. Not everyone sees or hears the same way you might … and that's as true for smartphone users as for anyone else. So what kind of considerations go into buying and using today's mobile technology products when you're visually impaired? What kind of brand wars exist in the world of the blind? Are we going in the right direction with audio cues and glass screens, or were the ...

Google has been taking its nice sweet time in preparing its Google Glass headset for a commercial launch, and for good reason: the product is unlike anything the public's yet familiar with, and unless Google really hits this one out of park, there's the very real threat that the project will come off as little more than an expensive fad. In order to make sure Glass is properly received, the company's been spending a lot of time testing and evaluating the product with its Glass Explorers, a select group of enthusiasts invited to participate in this early stage of Glass – after paying a ...

Apple, Microsoft, and Google all sell smartphones directly to customers, but only the first two have their own brick-and-mortar retail arms. This year, we've talked on more than one occasion about the possibility of Google branching out to the storefront space as well, especially with Glass's commercial launch looming over the horizon. We heard the company dismiss rumors of such a retail push back in February, but the idea's been getting some more attention lately, as a handful of mysterious barges have been spotted on both coasts. Barges? That's right; each vessel consist of a barge base, ...

So far, Google's been fine-tuning Glass and getting ready for the innovative headset's launch with the help of some early adopters. While those users still have to buy their own (very expensive) Glass hardware, it's nonetheless a pretty limited program, making participation a coveted position. Yesterday, the company announced plans to greatly expand the scope of this testing, inviting current users to offer up to three friends the chance to get involved with Glass for themselves. While doing so, it also revealed that all these testers will have the chance to swap out their existing Glass ...

At this point, it honestly feels less like a question of "if" than one of "when;" with Google Glass looming over the horizon, when is another company going to swoop in with its own head-mounted Glass knock-off? Well, maybe that's too negative a connotation, but the reality of the situation is that if Google Glass is even a minor hit, all sorts of other companies are going to be interested in getting their own slice of the growing wearable tech market – just as we're seeing more manufacturers embrace smartwatches as time goes on. Today, a new rumor looks to Samsung's interest in such ...

You've heard about Google Glass, you've seen the demo videos, and you've probably read a first-hand account or two. But for all someone can tell you about Google's smart glasses, this product is just so unlike anything we're used to that it practically demands "you're gonna to need to try me out for yourself." A while back we heard rumors that Google might be launching brick-and-mortar stores later this year in an effort to expose the public to Glass, though that idea seems to have since fizzled, and now the Glass launch is looking further off into 2014. Despite all that, we have some good ...

Today very much belongs to the iPhone 5S and 5C, only formally revealed to the world by Apple just hours ago. We're going to have a lot more to say about those phones in the hours and days to come, but they're not the only hardware in the news today, let alone the only Apple devices. Rather than looking towards the future, we find ourselves peering into the company's past, hearing from an ex-employee about work towards wearable technology. Tony Fadell worked at Apple from 2001 through 2006, and in that time rose through the ranks of the company's iPod division. Fast Company's been ...

Google Glass certainly lives out on the fringes of our smartphone and tablet-focused world here at Pocketnow, but as it is a mobile device running Android, it's close enough to our ballpark to catch our attention. So far, Google's public beta test of the headwear has been seriously expensive for those users involved, costing them $1500 each for early access to Glass. While the expectation has been that the final retail hardware would be more affordable, it still sounded like we were talking about a price of $1000 or more. Today, we check out some claims that Glass could sell for just a ...

Technology has been improving by leaps and bounds in recent years. Processors have gotten faster, RAM has become more plentiful, graphics processors and screens today are outstanding. We even have megabit data connections in our pockets -- which is amazing if you stop and think about it. What hasn't changed much? Batteries. I've seen the future of technology... and battery life still sucks! Honestly, it should come as no surprise, we've been complaining about battery life for as long as we've had consumer electronics. While improvements have been made, let's face it, none of us are ...

Google Glass is the latest consumer electronics product from Google -- though you can't buy it just yet. More than hardware, Google makes a lot of money from selling advertising space. A lot of money. You'll see ads when you look at search results, on websites that have partnered with the search giant, in Maps -- all over the place. It's not quite as bad as some originally thought -- they never released a "free phone" paid for entirely with advertisements like some had predicted. Google has kept the same model they introduced with smartphones on tablets, televisions, and other products ...

Google Glass finally seems more real than ever, with early adopters now getting their hands on the headset. Even with that milestone reached, our enthusiasm for the product just took a little hit, after getting news of long waits and an uncertain future for apps on the platform. As of just a couple month ago, we were hearing that the idea was to get Google Glass ready for its commercial launch sometime near the end of the year. Instead, Google's Eric Schmidt now has us thinking that it could be even farther out. He explained in a recent interview that Google will tweak Glass based on ...

Watch today's Pocketnow Daily as we talk about the HTC One launch in the US and what carriers offer it today. Then we go through the unusual-looking Samsung smartphone leaked in photos. Next we talk about 7-inch Windows tablets, and where Microsoft stands on this project. Google is next as we uncover certain details regarding a new gaming service that they seem to be planning. We end today's show by talking about Google Glass, the fact that it runs Android, and what that means to you as an end consumer. All this and more after the break. Stories: - HTC One Available Today Nationwide - HTC ...

It's something that's been in the back of out minds since first hearing about Google Glass: sure this is mobile electronics from Google, so we're going to be interested in it regardless, but does it actually run Android? Well, now Larry Page has gone ahead and set the record straight, confirming that the innovative headgear does, in fact, operate on a (no doubt highly-customized) build of Android. Like yesterday's comments on Motorola phone designs, this tidbit comes from the Google earnings call Page recently participated in. In fact, he seems to treat the Glass Android question as one we ...